


in from the cold

by Laylah



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Colonization, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Pets, Slavery AU, fluffier than the tags sound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 16:42:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/611970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she gets assigned to a colony posting on newly-conquered Earth, Nepeta's afraid she's going to be lonely. It turns out taking in a stray is just what she needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in from the cold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elemental](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elemental/gifts).



> I feel like I should apologize for the length of this story! The slavefic prompt was so big and open-ended that it could easily have gone far longer, and I couldn't resist attempting it even though I only had a pinch hit's amount of time to work in. I hope it's still enjoyable even though it's not the epic it could have been.

In the third standard sweep after the Earth war, you get assigned to a colony posting there. You're happy enough to spend some time on a planet again, after all that time on battleships, but you're going to be so far away from your quadrants. You'll still get to see them sometimes, after all, especially since everybody makes a big deal out of you being able to make Equius cut it out when he's a huge pain. You'll have designated leave periods and everything. But you're not looking forward to the times in between.

AC: :33 < its just going to be weird!   
AC: :33 < and lonely :((   
AC: :33 < purrticularly after things went bad with karkitty :((((   
CT: D --> Vantas was never worthy of you   
AC: :33 < :xx   
CT: D --> Do not make faces at me   
CT: D --> It is true   
CT: D --> I w001d not ordinarily make such a sugge%ion   
CT: D --> But perhaps you sh001d acquire a pet   
CT: D --> To distra% you   
AC: :33 < *ac purrks up at her meowrail's suggestion!* that might be nice   
AC: :33 < something cute and furiendly that i could play with   
CT: D --> Do not rush into a decision   
CT: D --> It is a possibility only

Yes. Definitely you'll have to get yourself a pet. Your meowrail is supurr obno%ious a lot of the time, but when you need help he comes through with good ideas!

* * *

Being on the Alterniforming crew is hard work, but pretty cool. You're in charge of local fauna introductions, so you spend a lot of time tracking cholerbears and musclebeasts through territory that's a weird mix of Earth and Alternian plants, reading the signs they've left behind to figure out how well they're settling in. Sometimes you get to have fights with Earth predators! They're not really as dangerous as you hoped. It's still neat, though.

In the mornings you head back to the colony, with its buildings that are still half human architecture where the carpenter drones haven't finished renovating yet. You have a nice little hive there, and even if you still miss your wigglerhood cave every once in a while, you like your hive a lot better than your shipboard quarters.

Then one morning as you're coming back, you catch a flash of dirty white out of the corner of your eye. You turn, heading for the corner where it disappeared. None of the specimens you've released planetside so far have been lusus-producing strains, and even if they were they shouldn't have offspring yet. You haven't seen any domesticated Earth fauna around here in perigees, and that means it's most likely a stray human that's slipped out of the nearest reservation.

You peek around the corner, stealthy and quiet, like a hunter should be. Stray humans panic easily! Even if Earth's sun doesn't burn as fiercely as Alternia's does, you still don't want to be out past dawn if you can help it. You'd much rather get this taken care of quickly.

Yep, stray human is definitely what you have on your paws here. She's a young adult, stick-skinny in that starved way they get when they're trying to get by outside the reservations. Her skirt and sweatshirt were both white at some point, but they're dirt-smudged gray now. There's a roundness under the shirt despite how scrawny her limbs are, but you don't _think_ she looks gravid.

The roundness squirms.

"Sshh," the human says, in a voice she probably thinks is quiet enough not to carry. "We just gotta find a good place to hide, okay? Then you can get down."

The lump under her shirt squirms again and a little black-furred head pops out where the zipper gaps open. "Mew!" it says.

She has a _tiny purrbeast_ hidden in her shirt that she's taking care of. When she is clearly starving herself. You melt a little inside. You don't want to round her up and take her to the reservation. You want to take her _home_.

When she starts moving again you follow her, careful, quiet. It takes a few minutes before she turns down an alley that will get you into close quarters—if she lived around here before, she probably remembers it having an outlet at the far end, but the carpenter drones have been rebuilding a lot of the city now. You show yourself. She freezes.

"Hi," you say, your hands down, your expression friendly. "That's a really cute little purrbeast. What's his name?"

* * *

The purrbeast's name is Mutie. The human's name is Roxy. They're both scared of you at first, but Roxy agrees to follow you home when you explain that you look after animals and you'd like to give Mutie some food. ("Not gonna just let me run, are you?" she asked. "Not pawsible," you agreed. "But we can just go to my hive, nowhere more unpurrleasant.")

She's skittish the whole way, and you see her carefully studying the doors when you reach your hivestem, like she's taking notes for the chance to run off again. Poor feral little thing. You'll have to be careful with her.

You bring her up to your hive and set the locks, then put a bowl of fishbits on the floor for Mutie. He chows down right away, pawsitively adorable. When you glance up from watching him, you can see the soft little smile on Roxy's face and aawww. You want to pet her.

Her stomach growls, and you giggle. "Would the purrbeast's brave furiend like a mewl as well?"

Roxy looks up at you, dark circles under her eyes and a worried expression on her face. In humans, those circles mean they're not sleeping enough. It's really not easy for them, trying to live in the wild!

"A mewl," she says. "A meal?" She smiles a little crookedly. "I probably would, yeah."

You make enough dinner for two, steaks from an antlerbeast you culled the other day after it panicked and attacked its handlers. Humans are omnivores. You'll have to get your hands on some plant foods for her if you're going to keep her, but right now this'll probably be okay. She's watching you cook like she doesn't want to miss a second of it.

When you hand her the nutrition platter with her steak on it, Roxy starts to cry. She slides slowly down the wall of your nutrition block until she's sitting on the floor, her shoulders shaking. Mutie headbutts her from one side, and you crouch down beside her too.

"Shoosh," you say softly. "Shoosh, it's okay." You pet her hair, slow and calm. "Shoosh, little Roxy, don't furet, it's okay now." You and Mutie both purr at her until she stops crying.

"Sorry," she says, wiping her face on the back of her hand. "Just a lot to take in, you know? Not a lot of nice meals when you're out there running around the war zone trying not to get herded off to—" she stops herself then and shakes her head.

"It's okay now," you tell her. "No herding here. Have some supurr and a catnap and it'll all feel better."

Roxy sniffles. "Thanks," she says. "You're the nicest troll I've ever met, Nep."

Nobody's called you that in sweeps. You decide you don't mind so much.

* * *

You debate whether you're really going to keep her for the next two nights. She sleeps a lot and eats whenever you make food, and she cries again when you bring home a bag of fruit and vegetables to keep in your thermal hull. She uses the standing ablution trap for huge chunks of time. She starts looking less starved and sick, and you catch her looking hopefully at the door a few times but she doesn't ask you to let her go.

Once you've decided you're definitely going to keep her around, obviously the next step is to take her to the vetriagist and have her checked out. She complains half the way there and pleads with you not to bother, promises she's fine, but you tell her very firmly to shoosh. You don't want her to get sick! It's important!

In the exam room she just huddles in a little miserable ball and glares, but she doesn't fight having her ears, eyes, and mouth examined, or her heartbeat and breathing monitored. Then the vetriagist asks her to lie down and spread her legs.

"What?" she demands. "No, wow, no, that is hella kinds of rude and uncalled for," and she tries to get past you toward the door.

You scoop her up off the floor and hold her while she tries to kick you. "Is something wrong with her?" you ask.

"Won't know until I've had a chance to examine her," the vetriagist says. He's an unassuming little teal with barely more horns than Karkitty's—he really shouldn't seem that threatening! "Humans are susceptible to a number of diseases spread through genital contact, some of which can be extremely detrimental to the animal's quality of life and most of which are treatable with simple antibiotics."

"You could just ask me!" Roxy yells. She gets a heel into your thigh. "I haven't _had_ any sex!"

The vetriagist looks unimpressed. "Almost all of them make that claim. They are often lying."

You plunk Roxy down on the floor again and spin her around to make her look at you. Her pupils are huge. "I want to be sure you're healthy," you tell her very seriously. You sort of wish you had powers like Vriskers and could poke around in people's heads to figure out what they're thinking. "Really fur sure, you know you haven't caught any of those things?"

"Really fur sure," she says. You believe her.

"Skip that part," you tell the vetriagist.

He looks extra unimpressed. "It's for her own good," he points out.

You know a lot more about dealing with non-troll animals than he gives you credit for, and you are _purrfectly certain_ you are not being lied to. You shake your head. "Roxy, behave fur the rest of your checkup and I'll do something nice fur you when we get home, okay?"

Roxy swallows hard. "Okay."

She winces when she gets her shots, and makes little unhappy noises when the vetriagist inserts the hormonal birth control implant—just in case! you don't expect her to be exposed to breeding males but you really don't want to take the chance—but she doesn't really complain, and she doesn't fight. You have to hold her down a little to get her microchipped, but it isn't hard to do when she's so skinny and underfed. You wrestle tougher things every night at work.

It doesn't count as misbehaving, you decide when you take her home. You want to give her nice things. You want to see her happy.

* * *

\--tipsyGnostalgic [TG] has signed on!--   
TT: There you are.   
TT: It's been ages. I was starting to worry.   
TT: Are you okay?   
TT: Did something happen?   
TG: you could say somethin happened   
TG: yeah   
TG: definitely a thing happened   
TT: What's the matter? Do you need help? Where are you?   
TG: slow down there di-stri   
TG: one query at a time if you please   
TG: im in a trolls hive   
TG: wait i guess thats two out of three answered   
TT: Three out of three, more like. I'll be there as soon as you tell me where you're being held. I'll break you out. How many of them are there?   
TG: no dont   
TG: youve always been too smart to jump on a frontal asasult plan   
TG: dont get yourself killed 4 me   
TG: thats not any kind of thing i want   
TG: not now not ever   
TT: Well, I'm not exactly hot on the idea of you sacrificing yourself to keep me safe, either.   
TG: im nto hurting tho   
TG: she kinda wants to keep me around   
TG: shes nice to Mutie   
TG: shes feeding me   
TG: took me to the doctor   
TG: ive had hot showers this week you remember those   
TT: Hmm. Yes. Clearly that makes it a whole different situation. No problem at all with involuntary confinement so long as it comes with creature comforts.   
TG: yep   
TG: dont you worry bout me none   
TG: ive got it made   
TG: now you tell me youre doin ok   
TT: Elegant and butter-smooth change of subject there.   
TG: you know it

* * *

Letting Roxy use your spare husktop was apparently a great idea. She chats to her friends on it while you're working, and she looks less like she feels trapped. Clean and healthy, she turns out to be really cute. You come home to find her playing with Mutie, dangling bits of string for the little purrbeast to play with. Just watching them helps you feel a lot less lonely.

You curl up on the pillows in your relaxationblock one morning to catch up on the shows you follow—you had to stop watching them for a while when you and Karkitty broke up, because he really liked them and it always reminded you too much of him. But you can stand it again now, you think. _Nameless Mediviscerator_ has such a sweet pale-flushed plot happening this season, it just makes you melt. You'd be sorry to miss out on that because of Karkitty being a stupidhead!

Roxy sits with you, watching the action. She seems to get really caught up in the monster-thwarting parts! Then toward the end of an episode there's this super tender scene where the Mediviscerator and one of his Compatriots have a fumbling, hushed feelings jam and there's a pile right _there_ but they don't get into it, and you actually squeak a little in frustration, chewing on one of your pillows.

"Augh!" you say when the credits roll.

Roxy giggles. "You sound so much like you're waiting for them to kiss," she says. "I would have expected troll TV to be a lot more about violence and fighting!"

"There's lots of shows like that, too," you reassure her. You've never managed to be more than demicaliginous yourself, though, so watching the really bloody blackrom dramas doesn't do it for you the same way. "But this is my fafurite kind of shipping."

She huddles into the pillows beside you as you put the next episode on. When the two Compatriots share a longing, pitiful gaze in the middle of that one, right before they run off to foil another alien plot, Roxy looks over at you to see how you're reacting.

"It's going to ruin efurrything," you say helplessly as you watch. "None of them can figure out whether they're flushed or pale."

Roxy paps your arm as if you're honestly upset enough to need pacifying. "It's hard, having ships that don't work out," she says.

You nod. "It's hard and no-one understands."

She scoots closer. "You can still tell Ro-Lal all about it," she says. "I am here for your tragic romance disaster needs."

Over the next two episodes you tell her about the shipping drama of the whole season. She winds up curled up in your lap while you play with her hair, and it's _weird_ , because it ought to feel like the worst kind of pale cheating but it doesn't. Not that you don't find her pitiful—obviously you do, or you wouldn't have brought her home and fed her—but it's just. It's different from having your meowrail around.

It's just nice, you decide. It's nice to have her around and cuddle with her and complain with her about silly things that aren't really an important part of your life. It's not serious business like your moirallegiance. It's just...sweet. And it makes you feel good. You're glad you found her.

* * *

A few mornings after that, you don't stop at just cuddling.

* * *

TG: so guess which of the fine babes you know lost her alien virginity in the last 24 hrs   
TT: Holy shit.   
TT: Are you okay?   
TG: yeah you kno rolal's no pushover   
TG: and she wasnt violent or anythin   
TG: like you wouldnt believe the amoutn of technicolor goo that can come out of one aliens junk   
TG: but im fine   
TG: just   
TG: fine   
TT: Fuck. Look, I know this is kind of an empty gesture from this far away, but:   
TT: *hugs*   
TG: youre a prince, mr strider   
TG: the undisputed prince of longdistance comfortin affection   
TT: You can tell me to shut up if you don't want to talk about it.   
TT: But for what it's worth, I just want to tell you that you're brave as hell, and whatever you have to do to stay safe there, it's okay to do it.   
TT: Not okay to have to do it in the first place, obviously, but okay to cooperate with your captor's demands if that feels like the lesser evil.   
TT: You don't have to be actively resisting to be a good person who deserves respect.   
TG: im goign to swoon now a lil bit   
TG: *SWOON*   
TG: that was more tahn a lil bit   
TG: youll just have to cope   
TT: I'll manage somehow.   
TT: For you.

* * *

You come home from a hard night at work and find Roxy in your nutritionblock doing something that smells amazing. "Mmm," you say as you start shedding bits of your uniform. "The furocious pouncebeast catches wind of delicious supurr! She will have to investigate."

Roxy gives you a smug little grin. "The wily housekitten has brought down a feral tuna steak! It was helpless to resist her soy and ginger arsenal."

Once you've taken off enough layers that you won't get blood on anything, you pad over and wrap your arms around Roxy, leaning your head on her shoulder. "What a clefur kitten," you say, and nuzzle her hair. She's warm in your arms, still small enough to make you feel tender and wobbly inside even now that she's back to a healthy weight: you're small for a troll of your blood, but humans are even smaller than you. It's nice, having this delicate, fierce little creature in your life.

The food tastes even better than it smelled, and you find yourself purring most of the way through the meal. Roxy sneaks Mutie scraps from her plate when he squeaks for attention. You help her load the nutrition utensil sanitizer after you eat. She giggles when you give her little kitten-lick kisses.

You curl up together in the pillows afterward, and you think maybe you're a little bit spoiled. You never used to get this much physical affection anywhere. Even with your moirail, it's always been really careful and hands-off so he wouldn't hurt you by accident.

"Rub the hard-working terranger's back?" you ask, sprawled in the pillows, looking up at her hopefully.

Roxy boops your nose. "No puppy-dog eyes!" she says. "You're breaking character." She rolls you onto your stomach, though, straddling your butt and bracing her hands on your shoulders. She digs in as hard as her little hands can manage, and you sigh contentedly.

The knots in your muscles give way, slowly, under her insistent kneading. The luxury of being able to trust somebody at your back, being able to relax this much, has you melting into a little puddle. Your purr rumbles through you as Roxy's hands take you apart. She has such clever hands.

"If the adorabadass housekitten has things she'd like," you say eventually, drowsy with pleasure, "she should make sure to say so."

Roxy's quiet for a minute, her hands stilling. You roll over and peer up at her. She swallows hard. "I miss going outside," she says softly. "Probably not a whole lot you can do about that, though. Not unless you were carting me around under your supervision the whole time."

"Purrobably," you agree. You think about it for a minute. "Unless you were wearing my sign." That's been done before, on other colony planets. "It would have to be purrmanent to count, but then it would let you move around in the colony without being in trouble."

"Purrmanent, huh?" Roxy says. She chews on her lip. "Let me think about that for a while."

You reach up to pull her down. "Take your time."

* * *

TG: is it still ok   
TG: if i stop wanting to resist   
\--timaeusTestified [TT] is an idle chum!--   
TG: tell me later i guess   
TG: ill be over here   
TG: not freakin out   
\--tipsyGnostalgic [TG] is an idle chum!--   
TT: Keep on not freaking out. That's a good plan.   
TT: Like it or not, this seems to be the world we live in. We lost that war like it was a toddler's temper at the end of a long day packed with sugary snacks.   
TT: When we say we want freedom, what we mean is we want our old world back. Not the hiding, starving, unsafe approximation of freedom that's all we can have now. But that's a dream that's not going to come true. We can't undo the last ten years.   
TT: So if you've found a way to be happy, or content, or even just safe and not scared all the damn time, in the world we have now   
TT: Then that's okay. And you're okay.   
TT: Don't ever doubt that.   
\--timaeusTestified [TT] is an idle chum!--   
TG: youre the best di-stri   
TG: <>

* * *

Roxy closes her husktop with a definitive little click. She's been poking it off and on all morning, like she was waiting for something. She must have gotten it now, you think—she's not the kind of person to give up on something that matters.

She comes over to push her way into your lap, the same way Mutie does to her when she's trying to do things on the husktop and not paying attention to him. "Kittens need kisses," she says.

"Fur be it from me to compurrlain," you say, and kiss her. You're a little surprised! Usually she doesn't start things, even if she's happy enough to go along with them once you do. Her mouth is soft and sweet, more tender than a troll's, and that gives you such fluttery warm feelings when she lets you in. She drapes her arms over your shoulders, twines her fingers through your hair. She's learned how to take such good care of you, her fingers kneading the bases of your horns and making you purr.

Today she shows you how to return the favor. She squirms out of her clothes in your lap and you drink in the softness of her skin, the musky mammal salt of her scent. She encourages you to leave little gentle bites along her throat, cups your hands around her rumble spheres, guides you to stroke and tease her nipples. She's delicious. You're melting, overwhelmed with tenderness.

She takes your bulge inside her, and moans helplessly at the way you feel. Her own bulge is a tiny little thing, a little nub of flesh hidden in soft pink folds, and you stroke it rhythmically, steadily, while yours pulses in the hot slippery grip of her nook. Her climax makes her sob and writhe and clutch you so tight, and you can barely stand how your bloodpusher feels.

After she finishes, she turns all her attention on you, working your bulge with one hand and your nook with the other, crooning sweet encouraging sounds as she makes you purr and mewl. You ruin the pillows you're lying on. You don't care.

You lie together drowsily in the aftermath, petting each other. She makes a noise like she's trying to purr with her human vocal cords, and you giggle. She bites you. You swat her gently as you would a kitten.

"I'm glad you're here," you tell her softly, whispering the words into her lusus-white hair. "I've been so much happier since I met you."

Roxy kisses your chin, adjusts her aim, kisses your mouth. "If I got this mark you mentioned before," she says, "it would be your little squiggle thing, yeah?" She touches your sign where you have it inked into your shoulder, and you nod. "I'd have a tattoo kind of like that, huh?"

You run your fingers through her hair. "Purrobably someplace more obvious," you say. "So efurryone would see it when they looked at mew." You touch her cheek. That would be obvious enough. You want it to be clear to anyone who sees her that they should leave her alone, that she has a protector, that she has somewhere to belong. You want all the other trolls in the colony to know she's not for messing with.

She takes a deep breath, lets it out, and then finally she nods. "I think...that would be okay," she says. "I think I want you to."

You hug her tight. "Roxy, my Roxy." The flush tingles through you as she kisses your cheek and hugs you back. "I'm so glad."


End file.
